


Ordinary Nights

by ButterflyGhost



Category: due South
Genre: Gen, M/M, Mental Illness, Post canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-15
Updated: 2012-06-15
Packaged: 2017-11-07 18:53:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/434272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser hears voices, but one voice keeps him grounded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ordinary Nights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [busaikko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Ordinary Days](https://archiveofourown.org/works/92755) by [busaikko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko). 



> This story needs to be read after "Ordinary Days", the piece which inspired it, and might not make much sense otherwise. The original piece is so good that it 'haunted me' for weeks and weeks until I had to make a reply.

At first, the worst time, the noisiest time, is at night. When the nurses walk down the corridors, dimming the lights, and all the patients are supposed to be tucked safely into their beds... that's when the shadows come creeping out. Out of corners, out of closets, out of the cracks in the floor. And... he can hear the other patients, those who aren't sleeping... talking, or singing, or shouting, or cursing. He can hear them for a long time, until they succumb to their drugs, and there is relative silence.

 

It is in that silence that the voices first begin. Not that he can tell exactly what they are saying, not at first... just that...

 

'Fraser... Fraser...' Mocking, taunting voices. Even worse, 'Benton,' or 'Benny'. There is a worse voice, one he will not hear. ('Come with me, Ben'). And each voice reminds him of each betrayal, everybody he let down. (Vecchio gambling his house on him, gunfire at the 32nd, children falling, gunfire in the cabin, and his mother...)

 

Better to listen to the voices. They drown out something worse. The voices become louder, clearer, and finally... finally he can see them. And they can see him.

 

Most of them don't like him. Well, of course not. They've been inside his head. They know what he's really like. And they've seen him fail. Why should they let him forget it?

 

At first, he really hopes that it's just a haunting. He knows what it looks like, and he doesn't want the doctors to realise, so he puts up a fight for quite some time. And... for a while, he looks around, hopefully, for his parents to return and defend him. They never do. Instead, he gets Uncle Tiberius, Nana Pinsent, Grandma Martha (Granny) and... there are revelations. Although they never met in life, his two grandmothers turn out to hate each other. The first time they appear together he lies there, bound by fear, watching them fight. His Grandfather Fraser (Gramps) settles with a sigh on the end of the bed, lights up a pipe, and looks at him, resigned, while the row goes on. Gramps is friendly, but is as helpless in all of this as he is. They sit together in a strange companionship, and try to ignore the women's voices.

 

At some point Ray visits. Kowalski, blond, and spiky, not just his hair, but every ounce of energy radiating off him. For the first time, Fraser can see it, a ragged halo, faint as cold steam rising from the lake on a warm day, just before the ice decides to break. Whatever Ray is saying, Fraser can't quite process it. Language has let him down, and this is one of those days when he can't translate a single solitary word that anyone is saying in his head.

 

Except for Granny Fraser, and Nana Pinsent, each of them blaming each other for the mess he has become, while Gramps sits in silent solidarity with him, nursing his pipe.

 

The second time Ray visits, Fraser's relatives are less... vocal. When the doctor realised that he'd been palming his medication, and dropping the pills in the trash, there was a change in regimen. A lot of struggling, and Fraser fighting, and biting, and... 'intramuscular anti psychotic'. He doesn't know at first which voice that is, a family voice, or a doctor, but after a few weeks of it, he knows that it's the doctor, and the voices are not quite so loud, and the bruises, where they held him down, are beginning to heal.

 

Ray's sitting next to him, trying to talk to him as though he's not a 'screw up' (and there are the Grandmothers fighting in his head again, about whose side of the family he gets it from, and there's Uncle Tiberius, staring out of the window, and muttering to himself like he's got ghosts of his own). And Ray's next to him and... He can't stand how kind he's being. He doesn't know what words stumble out, but whatever he says, Ray's crying, and it's Fraser's fault somehow. He wishes he could make it better, but he just can't take it back.

 

But after that, and he can't remember how it happened... a strange domesticity. He has no idea how long he spent in the hospital, can't even remember the first blinking, blundering days when he got out, but he does know that, eventually, the 'intramuscular injections' give way to pills, which give way to... To Ray trusting him, and looking after him, so he doesn't have to walk like a zombie through the world. And somehow he's with Ray now, and that's all right.

 

And... whatever the family are saying all around him, and the neighbours, the long dead neighbours, the long dead friends, Ray just smiles through it, as though everything was ordinary. And some days he brings Fraser gifts of sheet music, and some days he sticks on a cd, and they dance together, Fraser frozen beneath the pinion glare of his ghosts, too frightened to move, but protected by the dazzle that Ray dances around him in a glimmer shimmer of love and light.

 

If you could see what I see, he thinks, smiling as Ray pokes him in the stomach, and tells him that he dances like a stick.

 

At nights, Ray tucks him in, kisses him on the forehead, (like Mom, but she's gone) and goes off to sleep on the couch. A very little once in a while, Fraser's hand wants to creep beneath the sheets, thinking of Ray, but... no, too late. Ghosts around his bed. His hands fold together, and he lies like a statue, a medieval knight without his sword, waiting for the last trump to sound, so he can come to life at last. 

 

And Ray's goodnight kiss is the charm that keeps the voices at bay, so that he can sleep. He doesn't know what he would do without that goodnight kiss. He lies, rigid, not looking at the silent figures surrounding him, as though by ignoring them he can wish them all away. And he wishes... wishes there was some way he could kiss Ray back, without the whole world and silent din of it crashing in on his head.

 

One day Ray comes to the Centre to collect him early. Ray is grinning, and the nuns are grinning, and for a moment he's frightened. 'They're plotting something,' says Uncle Tiberius, and Nana Pinsent snorts, and laughs. But... Ray wouldn't do anything unkind.

 

He's tense on the ride back, although Ray is practically vibrating with happy energy as he drives. Fraser's trying to understand what Ray's saying, but it's... not translating properly in his head. It's one of those, one of those bad days when words do not compute. He can feel it slipping away from him... He's not sure what language he's supposed to be thinking in. (And gunfire, and a little girl's head blossoming into a red rose, and...)

 

“Hey, Fraser, it's all right.” Sometimes... sometimes Ray's voice cuts through so loud and clear, at just the right time, and it's so different from the voice of a ghost. They're standing outside the door to the apartment, and Ray's smiling. “It's something good, I promise.”

 

Fraser is tense. He's still frightened that this is going to be a bad night. Something different is going to happen, and he doesn't handle change. He has to keep everything safe and in balance since...

 

“Hush,” Ray's voice has become very gentle, his eyes very pointed, but not fierce. Ray sees everything, just how much he's afraid, just how he's feeling. Ray can... make it okay. “Come on, buddy. Me and the Vecchios, and the nuns, we got you a present.”

 

He shouldn't be so scared, walking in his own (their own) front door. He's so frightened his eyes are shut.

 

“You can open them now, Fraser...”

 

Obedient, he opens his eyes, and there...

 

“Oh, my... oh, good Lord...”

 

A piano.

 

“Yeah! Ain't it brilliant? Vecchio had a friend who knew a friend, and then we had like a whip round, and... it ain't your birthday, but... what do you think?”

 

Fraser's cheeks are aching at the smile upon his face. Again... he's not sure what language he's supposed to be in. He can't translate, can't compute... how do you say thank you for a thing as big as this? Tentatively, he walks up to the piano as though it was a frightened horse, might get spooked and run away from him. And he sees a horse in the apartment, grazing at the sofa. But, the piano stays, and the horse vanishes, and Ray's still smiling.

 

Quietly he sits in front of her (the piano is a her. Her name is Bessy.) Stretches out his fingers. Around him, his ghosts are standing, silenced, waiting to see what he will do.

 

He looks through them, past the ghosts, at Ray. There is a moment of sheer panic. What can he say, how can he say... how can you say 'I love you' when language has failed?

Oh...

 

His hands find the keys, and gently, he lets his fingers fall.

 

It's been a long time, years, since he played, but it comes back to him. Stuttering bits of pieces he learned long ago... Fur Elise shading into Moonlight Sonata, Hungarian Rhapsody number 2 seguing into Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven... good Lord, far too difficult... and back to Chopin, and the Raindrop Prelude. And... for a little while he panics, because he can't remember how they're supposed to go. He has to keep making stuff up, building bridges between the fragments he remembers. And it's like... it's like his life again. So much that he can't remember, so much shattered... but...

 

He doesn't have to be perfect. He looks across, and sees Ray, sitting on the floor, watching him play, with a look so settled and focussed and glorious it's like a pool of light. 

 

He smiles, feels the pressure on his brow of Ray's goodnightly kiss, like a benediction on his head. He doesn't have to be perfect... he can just...

 

He can't ever kiss Ray back, he can't shut the voices out forever. But he can do this. He can... he can play for Ray. He can play out his “I love you,” without the ghosts getting in the way. Without worrying about translations, interpretations, without worrying about what language he is in...

 

Oh Lord, he thinks, completely coherently, as his fingers find their rhythm, and their grace. Let this be part of my days now. May it be part of our ordinary days, our peaceful, ordinary nights.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the wonderfully compelling "Ordinary Days" by busaikko. I read this months ago, and it's been brewing away in my head ever since.


End file.
